


Home with you

by atom2



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Bullying, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Not Hockey Players (Hockey RPF), Rural Gays, a little more country boy than cottagecore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atom2/pseuds/atom2
Summary: No fleeting glances or deep conversation. No hands on cheeks or lips on collarbones to begin a search for something buried under flesh and muscle. He doesn't whisper, or drink to shout. He's there and Travis is there, both occupied by their agendas.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	Home with you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "In A Week" by Hozier because I'm like that. Hope everyone is doing ok. Maybe sanitize your keyboard before commenting.

Travis’s infatuation with Nolan is omnipresent. The way his lips curl around a mug of tea; how his cheeks glow a cartoonish red even when he’s out of the cold. But no matter how meaningful his actions may be to Travis, Nolan is not a deity by any stretch. Along with his soft complexion and relative gentleness come tattoos pricked into his arms and ankles and collarbone by risky needles. There’s a rather serious person underneath that supple skin, too; one that refuses a smile, one that values concentration and organization. It doesn’t faze Travis one bit. If anything, it brings him down to Earth when he realizes he’s stared too long and turned into a little boy charmed by his sweet schoolhouse classmate.

The trees block the sun from illuminating Travis and Nolan’s little house, but they don’t find a need to make light. Though the dusty gloom of sky beyond the black branches may seem unfit for a productive morning, it is lit as any blue-hued sky of mid-March. One would hardly be able to tell if there are winter clouds, or if that’s the color the sky chose to don. 

January may allow them to hibernate for a little longer, but life has always been for living. What’s life without work, or at the very least waking and greeting the day with a stretch and a meal?

Nolan replaces the grate of the fireplace, using caution not to burn himself or pinch his fingers between the cast iron frame and the surface underneath. It makes a horrible clang when placed, and in the nearby kitchen, Travis winces. His ears ring, brief enough to block out a couple pops from the pan of sausage he stands over. There are only four links, which isn’t anywhere close to the capacity of the pan, but Travis refuses to test his luck with the quality of leftover meat. He’d much rather wrap the remaining eight links in parchment and twine and store them back in the icebox. 

This is the most basic level of devotion he and Nolan have for each other. Other days, Travis would have to get more firewood from the shed. He’d slip on his boots and listen to the snow crunch underfoot while Nolan started mixing flour and baking soda for pancakes, toasting hard bread, or cracking eggs in a skillet and watching strands of white dribble from the brown shell. 

This morning is different, for one because Nolan’s duty this time around is tending to the fire. There’s a sweeter change aside from that, though. 

There’s this elderly woman who lives in town named Mrs. Millbury (whose spouse perished after getting caught in a combine, bless his heart), and she bakes and bakes and bakes. Her production is so rapid, she has a booth at the General Store that’s filled with pastries daily. Last night, while on a run for Amish butter and cinnamon, the dark wood paneling and the sign painted with candy-colored text reading “Mrs. Millbury’s Sweet Treats” enthralled the two young men. Their eyes possessed childlike joy as they explored the selection of icing and yeast, and they eventually plucked four blueberry scones-- unfrosted-- from the display. There was no need for discussion; after a few months’ worth of taste tests, they’d had a unanimous vote on blueberry’s superiority. So now, Travis, who’s keen on cooking regardless, got to forego the main course and enjoy a breakfast of Mrs. Millbury’s thankless gift and enough sausage for the two of them.

At the table, while Nolan has already started digging in, Travis slides a glass of orange juice his way. Nolan looks up, his blue eyes confused, and tells Travis he already has coffee. It’s true, though less healthy compared to the other option presented. Besides, with Nolan’s recent headache trouble, Travis anticipated that Nolan would stay away from stimulants. Apparently, he was wrong.

“Just don’t want you gettin’ scurvy, Nol’,” Travis explains, breaking eye contact to dig in, himself. He completes his statement with a full mouth. “Tha’s all.”

And there’s this thing that Nolan does when he thinks someone’s said something funny, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He does it to Travis now. In the corner of his mouth sprouts a sapling; a little spruce nettle hinting at a smile. His eyes light up and everything, only it disappears as quick as it manifests with a shake of his head.

Travis doesn’t know what to make of it. Every time, he has to shove his panging heart into a drawer; stifle it like a roasted marshmallow that caught on fire while he wasn’t paying attention. He rubs his lips together in thought, watches Nolan take a tentative sip of juice, and goes back to eating without saying anything.

  
  


Travis falls again-- falls in love, to be exact-- in the living room at 5 o’clock when the sun has already shut its eyes. It was a rather lazy day for both of them. Nolan voluntarily swept the house and rearranged the shoe rack, only interrupted by Travis’s request for help with changing their truck’s tire.

It’s a rusty clunker with a chipping coat of robin's egg blue paint and fraying seat belts. It works like a beauty, though, with its only recent trouble the front wheel that bled out overnight. It was an easy fix for Travis; all except jacking it up-- which, again, required Nolan.

With black grease still jammed under his fingernails, Travis listens to Nolan tell an animated story about his youth. The cool kid of the neighborhood rounded Nolan and his little friends up and set off to the woods. He tried to impress all them-- eight years old at most-- by climbing a tree and bouncing on a branch. 

Well, Nolan was a cynic even as a child and dared the kid to do it without a cowardly grip on the trunk. Harder was his next request, then they heard a crack. They looked at one another petrified like they knew how badly mama’d scold them for going into the woods and endangering themselves. But before they could lift a finger, before they could get the suggestion to climb down out of their mouths, the kid shifted his weight and the branch snapped. The sound barely stirred the forest, but it rattled the group whose leader now lay in a heap, no longer as fearless as they all had perceived.

It’s magical. Not the kid breaking his legs and wrist, of course. It’s that Travis can’t stop looking into Nolan’s eyes, seeing through them like he’s watching the event play out. Storytelling must be Nolan’s hidden talent. The way he talks is so engaging, with his hands illuminating his expressive jaw and eyebrows.

In the back of his mind, Travis hopes Nolan's smile is as bright when he tells stories of _him_. 

  
  


The grass has accumulated murky pools due to the spring melt. Underneath sheets of rippling glass are nests of dried, crunchy grass and orange pine needles. Some green is in the mix, but those more lively blades peek out like they’re not ready yet. It’s understandable; the water has yet to seep into the ground and the leaves of last year are far from creating a layer of humus. One could say it’s the dreariest time of the year, without wood violets or a lush green canopy to adorn the forest. Instead, it’s lichens and wet bark, vultures and mud, chimneys getting their last few uses come spring, and weather too nippy to brave the outdoors without a pair of gloves.

Travis and Nolan, likewise, hate it. Travis admits he enjoys the color palette and the skeletal, leafless remains of the deciduous trees. Nolan scowls and attests all it reminds him of is rot and decay. To him, admiring the current condition of the outdoors is like finding a half-rotted squirrel and bringing it over to your aunt for show and tell. The maggots have gotten into its face and eyes, and you have to be wary of how you hold it because any slight movement could make the corpse shed its tail fur like a neglected Christmas tree. Nolan prefers when he can go outside and feel something: lush, dewy grass awaiting the sun's warmth, tadpoles skittling by in the polished lake, and refreshing glasses of blackberry juice. 

They agree to disagree. Travis sees more poetry in frostbitten hands, and that’s alright with him.

To dispel his cabin fever, with hunting season finished and the maples tapped and sugar boiled-- Nolan digs through their cupboard and finds a jar of moonshine. He’d saved it a while back intending to get drunk off it; he didn’t know at that time when it’d happen. But now, with life in the woods limited to the engine of he and Travis’s pickup and the squirrels hijacking the bird feeders, Nolan figures the time is right.

He clears his throat when he approaches the coffee table, distracting Travis from his game of solitaire. Nolan sets the mason jar down as a crude offering, not breaking eye contact with Travis as he goes to sit down and let him think it over.

“At 3 PM?” Travis asks, more inquisitive than hesitant. He watches Nolan settle into the adjacent armchair. 

“You’ve already fed the chickens.” Travis isn’t fazed. “Plus I’m only happy-drunk when I’ve got someone to goof around with.”

Travis’s moment of consideration is a half-second long before he sighs and moves his lazy arms from his knees. Opening the jar takes some effort at first, and Nolan swears the veins popping out of Travis’s hands are the closest thing to porn he’s seen in a while. Travis’s knobby, calloused fingers with years of work embedded beneath the skin look enough to stop a man’s breath _and_ make him whine. And now that Travis has twisted the ring off with a metallic slide, Nolan’s mouth is watering less for the alcohol itself and more for the way Travis’s first sip will travel down his throat.

“You’re so needy,” Travis breathes. He tilts the rim of the jar to his lips, his head tilting back with it and exposing his neck to Nolan. 

That sip meets Nolan's expectations, with Travis’s Adam's apple bobbing as he ingests the sour liquid. Travis winces with its burn as if he drank lighter fluid and chased it with a match aflame. Nolan goes, after-- a little horniner than before. The moonshine elicits a similar reaction from him; a squint of the eyes and a pucker of the lips. They’ve grown used to the pain like daisies that grow back each year after they’re mowed over. 

This is a repetitive tradition for when things get bland: disorientation and shooting shit and headaches tomorrow morning if they don’t restrain themselves. They’re not stupid enough to split the whole jar. They pass it between each other until it’s half-empty and let the tipsiness settle in.

When Nolan and Travis get drunk, they’re two hummingbirds. Their default is fast-paced, constant chatter that makes the room vibrate. Good thing they don’t have neighbors, or there’d be a growing pile of noise complaint tickets on the kitchen counter.

  
  


There’s a steady rainfall outside that’s fashioning the gutters into a long stretch of kettledrums. The oversaturated grass overflows after penetration by the melt's moisture, causing mud instead of the month’s earlier frozen swamp. The insects have come out at a glacial pace; zombie flies or their offspring rising and feeding and dying by nightfall once the mercury hits freezing. Despite the cold’s enduring presence, it isn’t as paralyzing as it was before. Travis is out in the garage now-- whittling or whatever-- in a sweatshirt and pants. He didn’t think twice about the conditions when he left.

Nolan watches the fog roll from the kitchen window, imagining woodland creatures emerging from the haze to the point he expects their presence. Knowing how active their property is come fall, there has to be something awakening from hibernation; the lonely few deer who survived the winter or the coyote come to snare it. And what happened to all the rabbits? Nolan hasn’t seen any rabbits since last summer. Perhaps they’re too sneaky; camouflaged in the brush and thus invisible to the distant eye. Oh, well. 

When Nolan was a boy, around the time the neighbor kid fell out of a tree, his littlest sister found a group of newborn bunnies tucked against the shed. Their mother had abandoned them, appropriate but still cruel from a little girl’s perspective. No matter how much she tried to convince mama to keep them, and he can still hear her little voice-- ‘mama please, mom can we keep them? Just one mama, just one, I promise I’ll take care of it--’ her efforts were futile. Mama left her upset, Nolan remembered, allowed to look but not touch and now ruined by the thought of her companions’ still little bodies, frozen to death by the early morning frost.

And Nolan, oh was he a cruel little thing. He can’t even remember why he was so rotten in the first place. Maybe because his heart had to mend itself back together after his sister came into the picture; brushed aside by bows and lace and made into a man of the house. Yes. He despised that role. He wanted to play with the girls’ dolls and wanted them to come hunting with him and paw; show them how to shoot and skin a buck and be his friend. 

That couldn’t happen, though, so Nolan took it out on them. His mama and paw got the worst of it by high school when he was drinking and shooting cans in the forest instead of learning anything. He wasn’t that far gone by eight, but he was no angel. He saw one of the bunnies, identified it as the more fragile of the bunch-- its last sign of pulse an hour prior-- and picked it up by its ears. It horrified his sister.

“NOLAN STOP,” she wailed. “YOU’RE GONNA HURT IT!”

“Don’t be such a baby. It was dead before you had breakfast this morning.”

Deep down, his sister knew it was true. But his words were so cruel she was in no place for realism. “That’s not true! That bunny’s not in heaven, Nolan!”

“You’re right,” he said, tone still harsh but actions carrying a deceptive gentleness. He laid the bunny down on the ground in front of him, its limp and cold body cushioned by the wet grass. Nolan wasn’t about to surrender, though. He raised his foot. “It’s going to hell.”

He had a guaranteed lashing the instant boot met skull, pressing fur against grass and crunching jaw and neck. It was like a dry twig. He’ll never forget his sister’s scream.

  
  


“Oh, shit.”

Travis’s attention shifts to Nolan’s reflection, tilted steadily to inspect his jaw. “What?”

“Cut myself.”

There amidst the wisps of shaving cream is a small dribble of bright red. It’s a morbid cherry on top of a vanilla sundae, and like the fruit’s juice, the blood stains the cream pink. Nolan flounders with his hands preoccupied with his razor and messy fingers. Since Travis is empty-handed, he’s able to come to the rescue. He was tapping his foot to the beat of an impatient drum, but a little too transfixed by Nolan’s appearance-- half-naked and long hair wet, complexion dewy-- to pay much mind to his own needs.

Now he’s here, running a cloth under cold water and holding Nolan’s chin to keep an eye on his cut. Shiny red beads seep out and spill over to make a thin stream down the side of his face.

“Some nick,” Travis observes, wringing out the cloth with one hand. He soaks up the blood before it can leak down Nolan’s chin and neck, though Travis wouldn’t mind if that picture were in front of him. He has to push back an image of Nolan bloodied and brooding, a look on his face like he’s going to take Travis apart bit by bit. God, Travis drools over him like he’s the centerpiece turkey at Thanksgiving. But as much as he beats himself up for it, he can’t blame himself, either. There’s something behind Nolan’s eyes that shows resentment; a bad taste in his mouth that he can’t wash out with cheaply made alcohol. 

Whatever it may be is sealed up with the pressure Travis has put on the wound. Nolan thanks him, a glint of a smile present, then finishes up with a steadier hand.

As he’s rinsing out the razor, Nolan asks, “have you thought about shaving that thing off?”

He’s referring to the goatee at the tip of Travis’s chin, the one that he grew on a whim. It took longer to grow on Nolan that it did in volume, and even then it’s hard to say Nolan liked it at all. It was a change of pace; an escape from Travis’s everlasting babyface. It worked, too: the lady at the post office stopped calling him “hun” and chose “sir” in its place. Still, it seems like its time has passed.

“Yep. I was about to do it right now.”

“You're serious?” Nolan asks, his voice oddly, though not surprisingly, excited. “Here.”

Nolan takes a blind hold of Travis’s forearm and pulls him over with a firm grip. His position mirrors the one Travis adopted to clean up his face: one hand under the chin, razor in another. Nolan’s got a dollop of shaving cream in his free hand instead. His touch on Travis’s face is delicate; smoothing over where hair meets the skin on his chin and the scratchy areas of his cheeks. Travis takes a sideways glance in the mirror to see how much Nolan’s put on. He catches Nolan’s concentrated furrow of his brow; care and attention expressed by movement. The yellow-orange glow in the bathroom makes the red in his cheeks warmer; makes them radiate heat like the lightbulb itself. The comforting warmth consumes Travis even as cool metal glides against his skin, and though it surely takes hair with it, Nolan double-checks with the backs of his fingers. They too are warm, and after verifying a clean shave, they move to rest back under Travis’s chin.

With the peace of this moment, Travis can’t help but question his previous thought of Nolan possessing anger. Where would his hate come from? How could there be anything other than contentment pumping through his veins? Why shouldn’t Travis fantasize about that, instead of deflected conflict mixed with lust?

Nolan wipes the excess cream off Travis’s face and inspects his work once more. His hands get more use than his eyes, smoothing over delicate sheets of skin until he’s convinced he’s satisfied. 

“Playing for the Yankees now,” Travis says, breaking the silence.

Nolan doesn’t speak above a mumble. Travis feels lucky to be so close; Nolan’s open palms still resting on his cheeks. “I didn’t realize there was a handsome young man under there all along.”

“You sound like my grandma.”

Nolan’s scoff sounds genuine. “I wanted to be your aging housewife that you have weekly drunken fights with.”

“That's specific.”

Nolan agrees with a nod of his head. “At least you let me get smashed with you.”

Nolan’s eyes open up again, except they don’t confirm any resting suspicion. They’re a doe’s: pure, loving, maternal, even-- hiding, too. Shallow but at the same time too deep.

Nolan’s lips are not what Travis thought they’d be. They’re more chapped than plush, and haphazard. His tongue tastes like Listerine but Travis doesn’t feel minty fresh. His breath is more held than steamy. The kiss is still Nolan despite its shortcomings. It’s a dose of refreshing realism and pent up… something. Travis gives what he can: a fingernail dug into Nolan’s shoulder, more teeth than he intended, and the sterile, masculine scent of a fresh shave.

Travis has to ask once it’s all over, their foreheads touching and eyes half-closed. “What’re you thinkin’?”

Nolan doesn’t even take a breath-- or if he does, it was too short to notice-- like he was expecting Travis’s question.

“That I ran away because mama caught me kissin’ a boy like you. 

“Not ‘cause I was misbehavin’. I was still her baby then.”

A weight gathers in Travis’s stomach like a lunker of a pill. Nolan lied to him. That’s what created the unaddressed fire in his presence. His youthful villainy could have been cast aside; it’s not the reason he stole the car and drove until the gas tank ran empty. The bunny and the tree branch and the neglect meant nothing in the end. They didn’t cause his family’s scorn.

_I wanted it,_ Nolan told Travis the day he asked why. _I wanted love so bad I did anything._

Now it’s Travis whose lips feel different, whose hands hold Nolan’s cheeks. He’s nowhere near as warm or delicate. His calloused fingers are rougher. Nolan, caught off guard, takes a second to kiss back. He catches up with no problem; now gripping Travis’s musty brown hair so tight he’d pull it out if he tugged any harder. He’s achy and bruised and terrified of what this means.

When Travis decides he’s done with the passionate testimonial, an itch tells him to verbalize his intentions. His breaths are so short Nolan can see them like the outside chill pricks his arms.

“I’m your boy.” Travis pants, chewing on his bottom lip. “And you don’t need to run anymore.”

  
  


The slow march to April is over with the sky’s radiant burst of blue. With the stratus clouds’ departure comes the arrival of the green grass’ confidence. Though not short enough to need trimming, it sits among its withering brothers in overwhelming fashion. Yes, the ground is finally healthy. When Nolan finally strips the porch rocking chair of paint and gives it a healthy walnut varnish, he leaves smelling like the sun instead of moss. 

Travis can’t help but indulge in the weather himself. He went hunting for the first mushrooms of the spring-- or whatever wonders stood in their place-- an hour ago without a firm note of return. The loose deadline isn’t bothersome; the season provides enough light and warmth for Travis to find his way home unassisted. Hopefully, his trek will provide some fruit, but Nolan can’t be too certain that the freeze and decay of the last couple months left anything behind.

When the back door creaks open and shuts with a gentle stir of the kitchen’s loose ends, Nolan is stowing his materials back in the garage. The footsteps he thought he heard make more sense with the lonely nudge of the wind chimes hanging from the rain gutter. They’re next to a bird feeder, so a robin or junco could be feasting on seed (maybe it’s one of those fat squirrels Nolan has promised to shoot and taxidermy), but there’s still a glimmer that it was Travis’s momentum that caused the dainty music. Nolan smiles with his private intention, lips closed and heart open. 

Travis got something, which is the most important thing. A young antler and some film of an eyeless deer he’s going to have to get developed. Nolan forgot when Travis started to pursue photography; the aged camera he purchased seemed like a random Travis activity. He thought it’d become a fancy decoration like one of those wine decanters that sit on end tables to look pretty. But Nolan turned out to be a man of little faith. 

There’ll be photos of him on that roll as much as there are animals. And no one’ll be able to tell the difference between him and the deer no matter how close they look. Their chests are hollow, ribs exposed, antlers shed forcibly, and tongue dissolved. Each passerby nudges with love and receives nothing except a motionless shell. There’s always one that cares too much, though; one that bothers to nurture a corpse. In the pooling blood is a soul. The skull had life contained in its walls before the buzzards got to its heart. Who says the heart does not still beat on a different plane? Travis would be as likely to reach into the void in search of the deer’s second chance as he would be to break Nolan’s skin and pump his heart manually.

Travis frees the antler of its past with a coarse sponge while Nolan watches him from the kitchen table. He toys with his cap and his stringy hair in a subconscious attempt to tidy himself up. Travis doesn’t pay attention, nor does he dare to let his focus go astray, so Nolan lets it go. 

“So did you saw just the one off?”

“I wouldn’t have left the other if it was there,” Travis responds as the dirt and debris wash down the drain in brown pools. “Dunno if someone found the thing before I did.”

“Might’ve limped off after a car hit it. Exhaustion got the best of it and that’s where it died.” Travis sets the antler on the table as a centerpiece. Nolan’s not sure if he likes it; picking it up to inspect it as if it’ll give him an answer. “How close would you say it was to the road?”

“Close enough for me to think you’re onto somethin’.”

Travis takes a seat next to Nolan, his bag abandoned on the closest countertop. As Nolan gets the feel of the antler’s historic grooves, Travis is once again distracted by his mannerisms. He’s casual but focused; analytical but tender. Nolan doesn’t notice Travis’s admiration until a hand creeps upon his wrist. He gives only a brief look before obliging the offer and joining their hands together; his thumb brushing Travis’s knuckles in little strokes.

  
  


They find what they need in each other. For Travis, Nolan is a turtle basking in his sunlight; coming to his arms in need of warmth and comfort. Just his presence is enough to satisfy Nolan, who parks in his roommate's-friend’s-partner’s space, gliding a blade against rock. No fleeting glances or deep conversation. No hands on cheeks or lips on collarbones to begin a search for something buried under flesh and muscle. He doesn’t whisper, or drink to shout. He’s there and Travis is there, both occupied by their agendas.

For Nolan, Travis is a fist. Brutal, structured, supportive, loud. He’s making his way through the blood and the bruises like he’s a boxing champ on the old color TV. His lips crack because he cares so much about everything around him. It’s Nolan who teaches him to step back; to shut up. Now, he counts to ten when he can afford to let it go. (He still bears his teeth from time to time.)

There’s a name, a phrase, whatever it’s called, that Nolan carved into his boot. They were in comfortable silence required by their habitation of the hunting blind. No deer yet, but plenty of crows; the rustle of leaves that made them think they’d had a target. Nolan felt over the new, out-of-place grooves not to necessarily admire the handiwork, but to think of their meaning.

_YOUR BOY_

**Author's Note:**

> stan Oskar Lindblom


End file.
